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Just going around in circles, I said, and winding up back at square one.
"Be a good name for a restaurant," he said.
"Hows that?"
"Square One. A restaurant, a saloon, place on the order of the old Toots Shors. Kind of joint where you can have a few pops and get a decent steak without worrying what kind of wine goes with it. Call it Square One because you know youre always going to wind up back at it. You getting anywhere with Will?"
"You must mean Will Number Two. "
"I mean the son of a bitch who wrote me a letter threatening three prominent New Yorkers, and nobody seems to give a shit. I dont suppose youve been looking into it by any chance. "
"I dont figure its any business of mine. "
"Hey, when did that ever stop you in the past?" I didnt say anything right away, and he said, "That sounded wrong, the way it came out. Dont take it the wrong way, will you, Matt?"
"Dont worry about it. "
"You read that crap in the competition this morning?"
"The competition?"
"The New York Fucking Post. Thats close to the original name of that rag, as a matter of fact. The New York Evening Post, thats what used to grace that masthead. "
"Like the Saturday Evening Post?"
"That was a magazine, for Christs sake. "
"I know that, I just-"
"Slight difference, ones a magazine, the others a newspaper. " I could hear the drink in his voice now. I suppose it had been there all along, but I hadnt been aware of it before. "Theres a story about the Post," he said. "Years ago, before you were born or your father before you, they were in an ass-kicking and hair-pulling contest with the old New York World. The Post had the rag on one day and ran an editorial calling the World a yellow dog. Now this was considered quite the insult. You know, yellow journalism? You familiar with the term?"
"Not as well as you are. "
"Whats that? Oh, a wiseass. You want to hear this or not?"
"Id love to hear it. "
"So everybody was waiting to see what the World was going to come back with. And next day theres an editorial in the World. The New York Evening Post calls us a yellow dog. Our reply is the reply of any dog to any post. You get it, or is the subtlety of a bygone age lost on you?"
"I get it. "
"In other words, piss on you. "
"When was this?"
"I dunno, eighty years ago? Maybe more. Nowadays a newspaper could come right out and say, Piss on you, and nobodyd turn a hair, the way standards have fucking crumbled. How the hell did I get on this?"
"The Post. "
"Right, the New York Fucking Post. Theyve got an analysis of the latest letter, supposedly proves the guys a phony, a talker and not a doer. Some expert, some college professor, needs to read the instructions on the roll of Charmin before he can figure out how to wipe his ass. What do you think of that?"
"What do I think of what?"
"Wouldnt you say its irresponsible? Theyre calling the guy a liar to his face. "
"Only if he reads the Post. "
He laughed. "And piss on them, huh? But you get what I mean, dont you? Theyre saying, I dare you. Saying, Go ahead, kill somebody, make my day. I call that irresponsible. "
"If you say so. "
"Why, you patronizing son of a bitch. Are you too much of a big shot now to have conversation with me?"
I resisted the impulse to hang up. "Of course not," I said soothingly. "I think youre probably right saying what you said, but its no longer something Im involved in, not even peripherally. And Im going nuts enough without it. "
"Oh, yeah? Over what?"
"Another case thats not really any business of mine, but I seem to have taken it on. Theres a man Im just about certain committed murder, and Im damned if I can figure out why. "
"Gotta be love or money," he said. "Unless hes a public-spirited son of a bitch like my guy. "
"Its money, but I cant make it make sense. Suppose youre insured and Im the beneficiary. I gain if you die. "
"Why dont we make it the other way around?"
"Just let me-"
"No, really," he said, his voice rising as he got into it. "I know this is hypothetical, but why do I have to be the schmuck? Make it that I win if you die. "
"Fine. You gain if I die. So I jump out the window, and-"
"Why do a crazy thing like that?"
"And you shoot me on the way down. Why?"
"You jump out the window and I shoot you on the way down. "
"Right. Why?"
"Target practice? Is this some trick, you were wearing a parachute, some shit like that?"
"Jesus," I said. "No, its not a trick question. Its an analogy. "
"Well, excuuuuse me. I shoot you on the way down?"
"Uh-huh. "
"And kill you. "
"Right. "
"But you would have died anyhow when you landed. Because this is an analogy and not a trick question, so please tell me its not a first-floor window you just jumped out of. "
"No, its a high floor. "
"And no parachute. "
"No parachute. "
"Well, shit," he said. "I dont get the money if its suicide. Hows that for simple?"
"Doesnt apply. "
"Doesnt apply? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Suicide wouldnt invalidate the policy," I said. "Anyway, when I jump out the window its not suicide. "
"No, its an act of Christian charity. Its a response to overwhelming public demand. Why isnt it suicide when you jump out the window? Youre not a bird or a plane, let alone Superman. "
"The analogy was imperfect," I allowed. "Lets just say Im falling from a great height. "
"What did you do, lose your balance?"
"Wouldnt be the first time. "
"Ha! Tell me about it. So its an accident, is that what youre saying?… Whered you go? Hey, Earth to Matt. Are you there?"
"Im here. "
"Well, you had me wondering. Its an accident, right?"
"Right," I said. "Its an accident. "
21
I stayed put over the weekend. I went to a couple of meetings, and Saturday afternoon Elaine and I took the #7 train out to Flushing and walked around the new Chinatown. She complained that it wasnt like Manhattans Chinatown at all, feeling neither quaint nor sinister but disturbingly suburban. We wound up eating at a Taiwanese vegetarian restaurant, and after two bites she put down her chopsticks and said, "I take back everything I said. "
"Not bad, huh?"
"Heaven," she said.
Sunday I had dinner with Jim Faber for the first time in quite a few weeks, and that meant another Chinese meal, but in our own part of town, not way out in Queens. We talked about a lot of different things, including Marty McGraws column in that mornings News, in which hed essentially accused Will #2 of jerking us all around.
"I cant understand it," I said. "I talked to him a couple of days ago and he was pissed off at the Post for running a story suggesting that this Will is all hat and no cattle. And now he-"
"All hat and no cattle?"
"All talk and no action. "
"I know what it means. Im just surprised to hear it coming out of your New York mouth. "
"Ive been on the phone with a lot of Texans lately," I said. "Maybe some of it rubbed off. The point is he called them irresponsible for writing Will off, and now hes deliberately goading him himself, telling the guy to shit or get off the pot. "
"Maybe the police put him up to it. "
"Maybe. "
"But you dont think so. "
"I think theyd be more inclined to let sleeping dogs lie. Thats more their style than using Marty as a cafs-paw. "
"Cats and dogs," he said. "Sounds like rain. McGraws a drunk, isnt he? Didnt you tell me that?"
"I dont want to take his inventory. "
"Oh, go ahead and take his inventory. We are not saints, remember?"
"Th
en I suppose hes a drunk. "
"And youre surprised hes not perfectly consistent? Maybe he doesnt remember objecting to the story in the Post. Maybe he doesnt even remember reading it. "
* * *
Monday I got on the phone right after breakfast and made half a dozen calls, some of them lengthy. I called from the apartment, not from my hotel room across the street, which meant Id be charged for the calls. That allowed me to feel virtuous and stupid instead of shady and clever.
Tuesday morning Marty McGraws column included a letter from Will. There was a teaser headline to that effect on the front page, but the main story was about a drug-related massacre in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Before I even saw the paper, the doorman rang upstairs during breakfast to announce a FedEx delivery. I said Id be down to pick it up, and I was eager enough to get going that I skipped my second cup of coffee.
The delivery was what I was expecting, an overnight letter containing three photographs. They were all four-by-five color snaps of the same individual, a slightly built white man in his late forties or early fifties, clean-shaven, with small even features and eyes that were invisible behind wirerimmed eyeglasses.
I beeped TJ and met him at a lunch counter in the Port Authority bus terminal. It was full of wary people, their eyes forever darting around the room. I suppose they had their reasons. It was hard to guess which they feared more, assault or arrest.
TJ spoke highly of the glazed doughnuts, and put away a couple of them. I let them toast a bagel for me and ate half of it. I knew better than to drink their coffee.
TJ squinted at the photos and announced that their subject looked like Clark Kent. " Cept hed need more than a costume change to turn hisself into Superman. This the dude chilled Myron?"
"Byron. "
"What I meant. This him?"
"I think so. "
"Dont look like no iceman. Look like hed have to call in for backup fore hed step on a cockroach. "
"That witness you found," I said. "I was wondering if you could find him again. "
"The dude who was dealin. "
"Thats the one. "
"Might be I could find him. You sellin product, you dont want to make yourself too hard to find. Or folks be buyin from somebody else. " He tapped the picture. "Dude saw the shooter from the back, Jack. "
"Didnt he get a glimpse of his face after the shooting?"
He tilted his head back, grabbing at the memory. "Said he was white," he recalled. "Said he was ordinary lookin. Must be he saw him a little bit, but dont there be other witnesses got a better look at him?"
"Several of them," I agreed.
"So what we doin, coverin all the bases?"
I shook my head. "The other witnesses might have to testify in court. That means their first look at Havemeyer ought to be in a police lineup. If his lawyer finds out some private cop showed them a picture ahead of time, then their ID is tainted and the judge wont allow it. "
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